Is my photo scanner breaking?

leicam4 · Jun 6, 2010

I am not sure that this is the right category to post this, but I am having more and more problems with my photo scanner (Epson Perfection 4870 Photo). I've had it for about five years, and scanned thousands of negatives without any problems. In the past few months, though, strange imaging artifacts have been appearing on my scans. I lean towards very little image modification on the computer, so I really don't have it doing anything other than scanning the negative straight into photoshop, no crazy color correction or filters etc. Further, this problem seems to only occur when scanning negative film, not slide film. The photos were taken on Kodak Ektar 100 film under natural light. The problems are obvious, a kind of "dropping" of image info around bright areas of the neg, almost like the scanner is getting confused. Sometimes re-scanning corrects the mistakes, but these days it happens too frequently for this to be an option. Is my scanner just breaking, or what? This is my fist post on here, so sorry if I'm in the wrong place. I also cannot figure out how to post examples right now. I will work on that. In the meantime, any suggestions?

ifi · Jun 6, 2010

The interesting thing is that you can scan regular photos but the negatives do not always work - but more interesting thing is that they do work some times when you try multiple times. Some of these scanner have a separate device that connects to scanner via a cable to scan negatives - some times these cables or the connector go bad. It could also be some other software/driver interfering with your scanner.

If you have another computer try the scanner there.

But given the age and usage of your scanner it might be getting old too

leicam4 · Jun 6, 2010

Thanks for the reply! To my knowledge, there is no separate device for scanning negs, just a plastic frame that holds them on the scan table. As i continue to run tests, scanning in color seems to affect the occurence of the errors. when i scan a color neg that has problems in black and white, the image is error free, although now a b/w image. Very bizzare. I will try switching cable as well and see if that helps. I will also continue to post my progress. I have a suspicion that the scanner is just slowly dying.